


The King of Bad Choices

by Mordantmedico



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Bad Ending, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, Light Angst, My First Fanfic, Non-Graphic Violence, POV First Person, Pining, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26712325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mordantmedico/pseuds/Mordantmedico
Summary: A short in the world of Imalordin from the point of view of Malus. This chronicles everything from the tower to sailing to Farwick.
Relationships: Mal/Sierya, Tempest/Brand





	The King of Bad Choices

Maleus was born unwanted. The first son of a well off family, he would’ve been loved if he had been born human. If he hadn’t been a manifestation of all the darkness lurking in both bloodstreams, he would’ve been someone his parents were capable of loving. His twin sister, Sabrina, was all of that.

She was also the reason his father hadn’t stormed out on his mother; she looked too much like him for him to deny that he was the father. The magical paternity test simply confirmed it; both children were his. They named him Malice, as he was the knife hacking their relationship apart, but they still took him home.

He was a healthy, active child. A loud child, a curious child, a child that wanted to get into everything. He was a little terror, who had quickly learned that the only attention he was ever going to get was negative attention. His parents hated him and he didn’t know why. He looked different, sure; his skin was a washed-out grey instead of a warm brown, his hair a deep, bloody red instead of black, and his eyes completely black. Soulless, they called him. Hellspawn. Evil.

It only got worse when it became apparent that he was a healthy child. His sister was sickly, wasting away for reasons he didn’t understand. All he knew was that she got tired easily and had to sleep a lot more than he did. And, if he was being honest, he figured that was why she was so doted on. Something was wrong with his twin, so of course, his parents paid more attention to her. Of course, she got all the sweets and toys and attention she could want; she needed it more.

Or maybe that was just the difference between boys and girls; girls got doted on and boys had to figure it out for themselves. Before his brother was born, he wasn’t sure. Sure, the neighbor kids didn’t like him either. They did at first, but they’d always come back and say that their mom said they weren’t allowed to hang out with people like him. That he was evil and scary and not to be trusted.

It got to him, after a while. If Sabrina hadn’t been sick, he would’ve run away. He wanted to run away anyways, but he couldn’t picture himself leaving his sister behind. He loved her, and he was pretty sure she was the only one in the whole world who loved him. She didn’t see a monster when she looked at him, she saw the brother who was always willing to run and get her a glass of water and didn’t laugh at her when she had to quit their games early.

She never got mad at him for winning most of their games, so it seemed fair. He was...better than her in almost every way, except the ways that mattered. She was loved, people adored her from the second they laid eyes on her, and he faded into the background at the best of times.  
But he had the health, and he certainly had the brains. Not that anyone wanted to admit that last one; that the son they hated was a genius.

They had wanted him to be not worth the effort. They wanted him to be someone they could just forget about, someone who was lesser than those around him. Instead, the boy read everything he could get his hands on. He was fascinated by magic from a young age and spoke of being a wizard.

He was five years old when his brother was born. Xavier was everything his parents had wanted, a golden child. He was healthy, unlike his sister, and human, unlike Mal. Suddenly, he was the only kid that his parents had any real-time for. Sabrina’s quality of life didn’t go down, she still had everything she needed, but their parents just weren’t present much.

Mal took to reading to her because nobody else seemed to have time. He stumbled over the words and she was always getting on his case about doing funny voices, but he was the only one who took the time. Xavier, and soon after Xavier the news of another child, were all that mattered. 

When Malice was eight years old, his twin sister died. He had three other siblings at that point; Xavier, Faye, and little Robyn all took up his parents' time. All of them were human, all of them were healthy, all of them were worth the effort. Mal...hated all of them, if he was being honest with himself, but he was never good at being honest with himself.

The day his sister died was a day like any other. He had gotten up, made himself some toast for breakfast, and tried to ignore the way his head itched where his horns were coming in. It was raining, so he couldn’t go run around in the yard like he had wanted. It was that fact that had him dragging his feet up the stairs, overdramatically whining about how he would have to spend the day with Sabrina, reading more of the story they were both so invested in.

The only reason he was loud as he was going to her room was so he could be sure she was awake when he got there, so he was surprised to see her still tucked into bed. He hopped up onto the stool next to her bed, the place he always read and grabbed the story from where it was still waiting on the bedside table.

“‘M only gonna do like...a chapter, ‘kay? And you better not complain ‘bout the voices, you know ‘m no good at ‘em.” He told her. 

She didn’t respond, which was a little unusual but not terribly. He didn’t remember doing anything that would’ve hurt her feelings, anything that would’ve earned him the silent treatment, but maybe Dream Mal had done something. He could only hope that she’d forgive him in time; he couldn’t imagine how boring things would be otherwise.  
He began reading, intentionally doing it badly so she’d get annoyed. He wanted her to yell at him, to say anything at all. The silence was getting to him, not that he wanted to admit it, and he was so close to throwing off her comforter and shaking her that it wasn’t even funny. He got halfway through the chapter, doing all the voices wrong and tripping over his words more than usual before he couldn’t take it anymore. He threw the book down, not caring that he would lose his place, and grabbed the blanket. He ripped it back, expecting her to yell, and was greeted with silence.

If he didn’t look that close, he could tell himself that everything was fine. She was so still, but maybe she was just pretending. Maybe it was just a game he didn’t know the rules of yet. Her lips were tinted blue, and that was the part that scared him. He was the only one in the family that was weird colors. He reached out and grabbed her shoulder, shaking it as hard as he could. She was cold, and not in the way she always felt because he ran hot. She was cold in a way that scared him, and he couldn’t help the scream that bubbled up and out of his throat.

His hands grew hot against her skin, and before he knew what was happening her bed was on fire. It didn’t hurt, not like it should’ve. The blaring of the fire alarm hurt worse, a pounding ache in his ears. He didn’t remember who pulled him off of his sister, who got him to let go and doused the place in water. He learned later that because of him and his little fire trick, they weren’t even able to determine a cause of death.

His parents didn’t have to say that they blamed him, he could see it etched onto both of their faces. This was his fault. His twin had died because he was evil and sapped her life away, like the monsters in the books she loved so much. If he hadn’t been born, she would’ve been fine. She would’ve been healthy and loved, just like the rest of their siblings. 

So when his parents came to him and informed him that they would be enrolling him in the Oracle Tower, he was suspicious. They didn’t believe that he was worth their time, and yet they were enrolling him in the most expensive school in the city? When he opened his mouth to ask, he was backhanded for talking back before he got a word out. Right. They still hated him, he should’ve known better than to try and say something. 

He didn’t know much about the Oracle Tower. He knew that there was supposed to be some kind of test to get in, but he never had to take one. He was just welcomed to the school and given a lonely room near the base of the tower. He wished that he was higher up, high enough to see the whole city from his bedroom window, but it was fine. At least his roommate, an elf by the name of Fenjor, was nice enough. Distant and distracted, but nicer than anyone that wasn’t Sabrina had been to him.

Things remained fine for a surprisingly long time. He had trouble focusing on anything if he was honest with himself. Magic was great, but it didn’t fill the void where a loving family should’ve been. His familiar helped a little bit. Fenjor being reassigned to a different room, leaving Mal alone, hurt a lot. He hated being alone, wasn’t good at taking care of himself. And it wasn’t like the teachers cared enough to come to get him when he forgot to eat for days. The only reason he remembered to do things like shower was because the other students complained when he went to class.

He was smart. He was so, so smart and had so much potential. If he could’ve focused, if his head wasn’t constantly spinning with exhaustion and throbbing from hunger, he could’ve accomplished so much. He had to keep pushing himself, had to keep doing better, had to be worthy of his one shot to be someone who mattered instead of a monster.

He was almost eleven when he first conceived of the spell that would be his downfall. It was something he had only wanted to use on himself, something that had never been meant to see the light of day. Something that would take all of his pain away, all the bad thoughts and awful memories so he could focus on what was important. So he could do magic even better.

The only reason he wrote a paper on the spell was so that someone could check it over, someone could tell him if it was even possible. The teachers mostly scoffed at him, laughing at the idea that he might be powerful enough to cast it, and that only fueled the fire inside him. He had to show them, had to prove that he was someone worth listening to.  
He cast the spell and couldn’t remember the awful, cold bed his sister had died in. He cast the spell, and years of insecurity and self-hatred rolled off his back. He cast the spell and he was able to throw himself into his work with something that felt like actual joy. He cast his spell and he felt alive for the first time.

He didn’t remember much of what happened after that. The spell wore off after a couple of short hours, but he had been noticed by that point. He got a new dorm room in the basement, one that felt more like a cage than anything. He wasn’t allowed to go to classes anymore. They wanted to pry the spell from him and use it on a grand scale, but that was just the end goal.

He met Sierya. She didn’t have a name, not at that point. She was just a number, and he was just Malice. He...still didn’t remember how that changed, what had taken place that gave them both new names. It was another memory consumed by static, one that seemed like it would never come back. He wanted to say that he was fine with that, that it didn’t matter, but that wasn’t quite the truth.

He knew, objectively, that he spent over ten years down in that basement. The memories that he had of that time were fragmented to the point where they hardly felt real. Did he dream the time that Varsi lit him on fire or was it among the things that actually happened to him? He was pretty sure they had tested out most spells on him; they were looking for new and faster ways to cast the things that people used all the time and alternate ways to cast spells that were difficult to get the components for.

The spells didn’t always work right. That was an objective fact; not every experiment turned out right. And...they kept him alive. He was lucky in that regard; they only had to revivify him twice.  
At the time, he had wished for death. That they would’ve simply let him slip into the quiet dark, never to be seen again. He wished that the spell failed, as it was so prone to do, and they lost another one of their toys.

He still couldn’t remember when Varsi activated her actual plan for him. Trying to think about the time consumed by static was pointless; there was nothing there but an ache in his chest and a void where his memories should’ve been. He had been dimly aware of the plague, of course. It was when the healing magic stopped working right, and they had to figure out how to dump potions down his throat after their experiments.

As it turned out, failing at healing spells hurt a lot. Cure wounds became inflict wounds, and there was only so much of that he could take. He was pretty sure he was the first one to reuse his static spell, the first one to take away the memory of how much everything hurt. He had needed a couple of moments of relief from the agony and hadn’t realized that he was being monitored even as he slept.

It wasn’t an easy task to gather the components he needed for the spell. He had access to next to nothing, and it wasn’t like he could leave his holding cell. He was trapped, only able to communicate with his fellow prisoners by tapping on the wall between them, and had to make do with what little he had.

It meant that he had to redo the spell, find a way to remove all of the physical components. He had his hands and his voice, and that was it. It took him months of quiet practicing to earn that relief, and when he finally managed to cast his spell again, the first emotion he felt was pride. The agony went away, faded into dull static, and he could finally tell himself that everything was going to be alright.

Everything that happened after that was a blur. A long, awful gap in his memory. He went from being twelve to twenty-two with no memory of what happened in between. His next memory was of a tall, faceless god touching either side of his head. The places where they touched hurt, throbbing spikes of agony, and it was that pain that really brought him back to himself.

It was the first time that he had felt anything in years. Hot spikes of pain lit up his brain as the god pulled away the blanket of awful nothingness, and he wanted to sink to his knees in relief. He managed to stay standing against all odds, and he finally took in the rest of his surroundings. There were a bunch of strangers; the sight of them made his heart race.

His first impulse was to run, to push past them, and find his own way to freedom. The only thing that stopped him was the sight of Sierya. She had been his friend, once upon a time. She had to be the only person in the world who understood what had happened to him, would understand the pain he was in. He took a tentative step out of the god’s grasp, grateful that they released him as soon as he started to move, and she launched herself at him, hugging him tightly.  
He wanted to cry, wanted to break down sobbing into her shoulder, but he couldn’t show weakness in front of strangers. He didn’t know a single one of them, just knew that he couldn’t trust them. He couldn’t think of a single good reason for a bunch of people to be down in the depths of the Oracle Tower; the only people who had ever been allowed down were the experiments and the “scientists”. 

Sierya spoke of revenge, and that’s what his brain latched on to. The others were talking, sure, saying things that probably made sense. His brain wasn’t ready to process all of that, wasn’t ready to take in who they were or why they were here or what had happened in the past ten years. He could get behind revenge and made sure that this bunch of strangers knew that he was coming with.

Other things happened with the god, he was sure, but he couldn’t really focus on what. They began climbing the tower, and he wanted to scream. He wanted to ask why they were bothering, why they couldn’t just blow the whole place up and let everyone who had hurt him, hurt her, hurt them go up in flames like they deserved to. They even let one of the teachers join them. It wasn’t one Mal recognized, but it wasn’t like that mattered. The last ten years of his life were a blur; there was nobody alive that would ever be sure of every person who hurt him.  
The teacher spoke of doing good, of atoning for atrocities, and making the world a better place, and it made him want to laugh. There wasn’t a single person in this Gods forsaken tower that was good, was able to make the world better. This was a place of pain, torture, and isolation, and there wasn’t coming back from that. It was evil, and everyone who worked in it was as well.

It was cathartic, destroying the evocation teacher. The old elf didn’t stick out in Maleus’s memories as being particularly malicious, but he wasn’t kind either. Not even that first year, when Mal was just a normal student. He expected too much, pushed people too far, and the way the people around him were perfectly fine with ending his life was a relief.

Mal noticed the way that the other teacher, the necromancy one that they were talking with, didn’t participate in the fight. It was another reason not to trust him. Surely, if he was so convinced that he could do better, that could start with hurting those that had hurt others. Surely, that meant helping in a fight that could be dangerous.

It wasn’t, not really. The party was organized, or at least more organized than he was expecting, and efficient in their killing. There wasn’t mercy there, there wasn’t an opportunity for the old man to make amends. He hadn’t joined them, hadn’t gotten out of their way, so they decided to kill him. It was simple, black and white logic, and Maleus was more than ready to get behind it. 

They continued upwards, charging toward the top of the tower with the blind conviction that they were doing the right thing. A couple of mages that tried to stand in their way were either intimidated or otherwise blasted out of existence; none of them had time for it. They wanted the Headmaster dead, and Maleus was more than inclined to agree.  
They reached the top. Mal’s mouth was dry, his hands were shaking (from rage or fear, he didn’t know), and he still didn’t know if he wanted to run toward his problems or away from them. The fire genasi, who’s name he had figured out was Brand, kicked down the door. There was the Headmaster, the man who had so efficiently ruined his life, along with the dragon who actually ran the school. Varsi, who was oh-so-good at pretending to be a good person. As if she hadn’t lit children on fire just because she could.

He knew what he wanted to do, at that moment. He wanted to fight, wanted to destroy, wanted to channel all of his useless anger into something productive. He wanted to see the tower painted red with their blood, and he didn’t care who he had to go through to do it. He was a wizard, and more powerful than they gave him credit for.

It started with a gunshot. Sierya didn’t give Varsi a second to defend herself, to try and make herself out to be a good person. She summoned her Arcane Glock and took the shot, and the little bird girl followed suit with her much more mundane gun. Two bullets, one magic, and one mundane pierced the dragon’s thick scales and sent her blood trickling onto the papers strewn about the Headmaster’s desk. There was no denying that it was a fight now, and Dragonborn and dragon alike got ready to fight them.  
The fight was long and tiresome; the group up against three adult dragons and a Dragonborn with the same wizarding specialty as Mal himself. Chronomancy was a difficult specialty, and it made the man dangerous. He couldn’t argue with taking him out first, before focusing on the dragons that would take a lot more effort to wipe off the map.

The details of the fight faded from his mind. He knew there was a point where he was coughing up blood, sure that he was seconds away from dying, and found himself fine with the idea. If this was the end of him, he’d die happy. He’d die free.

He was healed by someone. Likely the kenku, but he couldn’t say for sure. He kept fighting, hands shaking as he shot off spell after spell, concentrating on doing as much damage as possible. Maybe he should’ve been playing support, maybe he should’ve been helping the people who were obviously much more used to fighting, but all he wanted to do was make people hurt. 

The Headmaster fell, and that felt good. He wanted to laugh, to cry, to howl in victory, but the fight wasn’t done yet. Not with all three of the dragons here now, angry that their plans were falling apart in front of their very eyes. Varsi was the next to fall, and he couldn’t help the cheer that escaped his mouth at the sight of the kenku’s death god emerging from the ruined remains of her body to help them destroy the other two.

With the god of death on their side, the fight didn’t last much longer. It was a bit of a relief; Mal didn’t exactly have a lot of high-leveled spell slots left, and his ability to inflict real pain was diminishing by the second. He was exhausted to the point where he could hardly stand by the time the last of the dragons fell, and he didn’t care about looting the office. He was more than happy to let the band of strangers take what they wanted; he just wanted to get out of Glimmer Bay.

He didn’t know where he was going to go, which was the main reason he agreed to stay with the party. It was that and he wanted to keep an eye on Sierya. The mask she had chosen to hide the pain away was a cheerful one, one that was all bright smiles and stupid moves. She wanted them to believe she was incompetent and harmless, and he was terrified that they’d take advantage if he wasn’t there to watch out for her.

His mask was indifference. If he didn’t care about anything, nobody could find something to hurt him with. The mask slipped when he was around her; it was impossible for it not to. She was bright, looking at her was like looking at the sun, and he made it his mission to see her smile. To see her real smile, not the one she wore so they wouldn’t worry about her. He stuck to her side, happy to be her guardian.

It gave him purpose, standing by her side. Protecting her became a core of who he was. When they traveled on the road, all too quick to accept another Dragonborn and a firbolg into their group, he slept with a knife in his hand. He didn’t accept their food, didn’t join in on their jokes. He stayed by Sierya’s side, ever vigilant. He had to keep her safe, had to make sure none of these people would hurt her.

He volunteered for watch whenever she did, pulled from her magical Tarot deck whenever she wanted, rode on the back of the horse she didn’t know how to steer. Everything was for her. He loved her, not that he ever found the courage to say so.

It wasn’t like she didn’t do things for him, either. She was the one who insisted that he was included, that shoved him toward the spotlight every time he tried to hide away. They were a team. He heard the others laugh, sometimes, nudging one another and pointing in their direction, and it made him want to snarl and fight them.

He’d lose. He knew that he’d lose, that he wasn’t strong enough to fight anyone. He had his magic, and he was pretty good at getting out of the way, but in an actual fistfight? He would never stand a chance. He also...didn’t want to fight any of them. They were nice enough, in a way that left him waiting for things to go wrong. He couldn’t bring himself to trust them, not even when they charged into danger after Sierya. Even when they went out of their way to heal him, to make sure everyone stayed healthy and alive, he couldn’t let himself trust them.

There was too much of a chance that it was all a trick. He knew, factually, that he was an adult but couldn’t stop thinking of them as real adults. And adults had never been kind to him, never given him a fair chance. He wasn’t a real adult, had lost too much time to be a real anything, and it seemed like Sierya had as well.  
The trip between Glimmer Bay and Oceanfalls was a short one; only a total of four days on the road. The weather was nice enough for most of it, and they didn’t run into much actual danger. Besides the foxes in the Laughing Fox Woods, and even they weren’t much of a challenge. They just...hurt, and it wasn’t like it was actually that hard to bite down on a fleshy part of a wizard or a sorcerer.

Iandan and Crier had come to save the day, though. They had charged after Sierya’s runaway horse to just to make sure the riders were alright. Iza had come as well, but not fast enough to actually get in on the combat. Brand had stayed behind, and Mal found himself distancing himself from all of them more because of it.

It was so easy to rationalize why they would pretend to care, and why Brand didn’t bother. Brand was too stupid, too clueless to keep up the ruse. The others were all much more capable of subtly, of lying, and he wasn’t going to be caught off guard. He hardly slept the whole trip, only ate when he had to. He had to stay alert, had to keep his eyes out for trouble.

There wasn’t much, not really. A couple of vaguely ominous events, a pull of her tarot deck that he would’ve liked to forget, but nothing of real note. They were in Oceanfalls all too fast, and he was amazed to see just how different life was there. The lone guard on the gate wasn’t overworked and exhausted and seemed truly passionate about her job. The locals kept a wary eye on people but seemed genuine in a way Mal had never really experienced.

The owner of the inn they were staying at, Thernir, was kind despite his rough appearance. The dwarf looked like he had been in more than one fight over the years, with multiple scars and a frown that seemed all but glued to his face, but was more than happy to talk to his traveling party. He offered them rooms for cheap and was more than happy to provide all manner of drinks.

Iandan hadn’t needed to buy a room for them; he had more than enough to do so himself. The firbolg had, though, and even knew enough to know who he wanted to share with. They were granted privacy for the first time in...so very long, and it warmed something in Mal’s heart to see it. He wanted to hide away in the room, wanted to stay somewhere with four walls, and just exist without eyes on him, but Sierya wanted to have fun.

He followed her down the stairs. He sat next to her at the bar, listened as she ordered her drink. The strongest thing they had seemed like a mistake to him, but it wasn’t like he was about to tell her that. She deserved to live through the experience if she wanted to, and it wasn’t like he would let anything truly bad happen to her. He ordered something significantly less strong and sipped at it, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the taste of alcohol. He didn’t want to be seen as a child, after all.

She downed her whole drink in one gulp, which seemed like a great way not to taste it. He was...a little tempted to follow suit, or would’ve been if she had been alright. The alcohol hit her like a ton of bricks, and she was all but passed out. Iandan was hauling her up the stairs to lay down before Mal got his feet back under him, a fact that he resented more than a little, but at least the firbolg didn’t stay.

Mal insisted that he could take care of her, that Iandan could go relax with his friend, and it was nice that the other man actually believed him. He stayed by her side all night, helping her to the bathroom to vomit out the contents of her stomach when she needed to. Holding her hair back as she did. Listening to her ramble on about whatever came to her mind, and interjecting whenever he thought she wanted feedback.

It kind of sucked, that his first night with the option to sleep in a real bed was spent awake, watching for any sign that she might need more help. He was...so tired. He was more than tired, but it was the exhaustion that he was ready to name. It was the tired ache in his bones that he felt equipped to deal with.

She still felt like garbage in the morning but seemed more ready to pretend otherwise. It was time to go shopping, after all, and she was so excited to buy things that were just for her. It wasn’t like she had the opportunity to really own things before, or at least not things she had stolen or otherwise found, and she was all but bouncing up and down as she waited for the rest of the party to get ready.  
She was still the first to scramble into the local magic shop. It was called Arcane Infinity, and there was a smiling kenku behind the counter, just waiting to serve them. Potion Swirl, as the kenku was called, was more than happy to sell them whatever he had, as long as they offered the right price.

Mal didn’t know why Sierya wanted so many animal figurines, but that was the first thing she asked about. Another figurine, to go with her horse. She got a dog one, and she looked so proud of herself. She also bought potions and other, more useful sounding items, but it was the dog figurine that stuck out to him. It wasn’t something anyone in the party needed, and if the horse was any indication, Sierya wasn’t particularly good with animals. And yet, she seemed so happy to have another summonable animal.

He had to bite back the question of what use it would be. Maybe it wasn’t about the animal being useful. Maybe it was about something else, something he couldn’t hope to understand. He didn’t know if she’d explain if he asked, and he didn’t want to chance fucking up talking to her. He tried his best not to annoy her, tried his best to only speak when spoken to.

His fear that they would all abandon him, that they would choose to take her and leave him behind, was probably irrational. He was smart enough to know that. It didn’t take the fear away, didn’t stop him from biting his cheek to avoid saying something. If he didn’t talk much, he couldn’t be annoying. If he wasn’t annoying, they’d tolerate him. If they tolerated him, they wouldn’t separate him from the only person he trusted enough to let himself care about. It was flawless logic. 

He didn’t buy much in the shop. A couple of health potions, for if shit got bad and the party decided he was expendable, were his priority. He had to focus on his ability to stay alive; to not need anyone else. He’d accept their help, he’d let them do pretty much whatever they wanted, but he needed not to need them. He needed to be able to walk away, if shit got bad.

When they were finally done with all of their shopping, all Mal wanted was to go back to his room and sleep. He was so tired, and the day was so long already. He...didn’t get what he wanted. Which wasn’t unusual, considering everything that had happened in his life, but still wore on him a little bit. A water genasi decided that she wanted to be friends with the adventuring party, decided specifically that she wanted to be friends with their fire genasi, and didn’t seem like the type to take no for an answer.

She wanted them to follow her out to the woods, and Mal couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less. Why the party had decided that she was trustworthy, he didn’t know. They were just going to follow her blindly into the woods to listen to what she had to say, and nobody was even going to ask why she couldn’t tell them in the middle of town. 

He had to be ready to fight, for when she inevitably betrayed them. He had to be ready to wipe her off of the map, for when she inevitably hurt the one person he cared about. He didn’t understand. How could they trust her so easily? Why were they blindly walking into what felt like it was sure to be a trap? Did they not see it, or did they just not care?

She pulled them away from town, dancing through the Laughing Fox Woods like she owned them, and spoke of the werefoxes as protectors. She spoke of the forest as a sacred place, a place where a rarely-seen god made their home. He wanted to snap, to demand why she thought they were so stupid as to believe this, but the rest of his party seemed so enthralled that he held his tongue. If Sierya was happy, if Sierya wanted to trust this stranger, he would have to be okay with it. 

The genasi’s name was Tempest, and he felt a little better for knowing her name. Or...the name she had given them; he had no real way to know if it was her true name or not. It was what she wanted to be called, so it counted as her name. Tempest was...very blunt about her interest in Brand, in the fact that Brand was special. Her first claim, upon drawing them away from civilization, was that she was god-blooded. That she was the granddaughter of Oncoming Storm, and that the local church should be under her control instead of under the control of the half-elf who currently preached there.

Her second claim, that she made with the biggest smile Maleus thought that he had ever seen, was that Brand was also god-blooded. That Sacrifice had made a contribution to his family tree, and that explained all of the weird, fiery things that Brand could do. It...made some sense, to Mal at least, but the fire genasi had a hard time accepting the idea. 

While Brand thought about what he had been told, Tempest kept talking. She didn’t seem to care that Brand was struggling with her last revelation, she needed the party to do something for her. She didn’t speak of payment, and nobody brought it up. Not even when she explained that she needed the head of the church murdered, so she could take her rightful place as the person in charge of it. 

The party was more than a bit hesitant to blindly say yes to that one; they wanted to know why they wanted to know what the man had done to deserve death. And Tempest wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details, just saying that he was bad and hated her and wasn’t representing her grandfather right. It was obviously something she cared very deeply for, and also something she was counting on them taking because Brand liked her.

Mal wondered how blind the party could be to this manipulation. She was obviously using her looks, and her weird claims about both her and Brand’s bloodlines, to trick them into doing her dirty work for her. He wanted to ask why she couldn’t go murder the half-elf if it was so important to her, but the rest of the party was just starting to nod along with what she said.

Assassins, send to murder Tempest, interrupted the conversation. Brand’s first reaction was to fling a fireball in the general direction of one, as none of them had actually laid eyes on them. They had heard something in the woods, and Tempest had warned them about people being after her. The woods were on fire, which made Tempest yell, but the assassins were a bigger problem.

The fight was long and hard, and it quickly became clear that Tempest wasn’t much of a fighter. She mostly focused on keeping the forest healthy, making sure they weren’t trapped in a burning ring of fire, and for that Mal was thankful. He didn’t know what Brand was thinking, throwing fire around a forest, but there was always the chance that he simply wasn’t.

Iandan and Iza focused on keeping the three frailest members safe; they kept Maleus, Sierya, and Tempest all in the center, with fighters at every side of them. Mal..appreciated it, and in return for that show of kindness, focused first on buffing himself with magical armor so one hit wouldn’t all but kill him. Sierya was focused on damage, and Tempest was focused on the forest. Brand was bound and determined to be a melee fighter, and Iza and Iandan were both on the front line as well. Crier had the range to move wherever he was needed. Mal and Sierya were both casters, of course, and had all kinds of ranged spells on their side.

The assassins also had range, choosing to stay in the shadows and use poison to take them down. They didn’t know, apparently, that the firbolg was immune. The rest of them weren’t, and it quickly became apparent that the assassins were at least somewhat competent. They mostly focused on Tempest, unless there was someone directly in their way, and it wasn’t that long until the water genasi fell to the ground, bleeding out.

Mal kept attacking, sure that their cleric would do something. Crier was always good about keeping everyone alive, and he was sure that she would be fine. That all of them would be fine, despite the poison that was wreaking havoc. But the kenku...didn’t. Crier’s action was not to help the fallen but to keep pursuing the assassins. He didn’t stop to heal anyone until every one of them had fallen.

It was another reason not to trust the kenku, not that Mal needed another reason. It didn’t matter that he healed everyone after the fight, it didn’t matter that Tempest wasn’t upset. It was more proof that he couldn’t trust people, that violence was the answer, that if he fell down at an inconvenient time, they’d leave him to die. He would have to buy more healing potions when they got back to town; there was no way he could risk anything happening to him or Sierya. 

Tempest simply smiled and asked them if they believed her now. He wanted to snap that, no, of course not. She could have easily been the one to hire the assassins, it all could’ve been a very convenient trap to get them to pity her, but he knew better than to open his mouth. Especially with the way Brand was looking at her like she had personally put the stars in the sky; something she leaned into whole-heartedly. 

They went back to the inn for the night, as everyone wanted to rest after that particular experience. They hadn’t committed to killing the half-elf, not yet, but they were obviously considering it. He didn’t want to, didn’t think it was a good idea, but it wasn’t like they would listen to him. If they were going to flail blindly into a trap, he would have to be there. Just...just to make sure the people that were helping him stay alive didn’t die on him. It wasn’t that he cared about them, beyond Sierya, it was just that they were his ticket to as far away from Glimmer Bay as possible.

He...let himself sleep that night, comforted by the four walls and the even sound of Sierya’s breath in the bed next to his. The door locked, so he was confident that he’d hear anyone long before they got into his room. There was absolutely nothing for him to be afraid of. His sleep was light and dreamless, but more rest than he had gotten in ages.

They still hadn’t agreed to kill the head of the church, not really, but Mal saw the writing on the wall. They were going to end up doing it, if just because Brand liked Tempest. And Mal...kind of understood that, at least. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t kill for the person he loved. He’d do anything for Sierya, and that included a lot worse things than the murder of one man.

But murder was a pastime reserved for the dark, so they had the whole day to burn. He didn’t know what they would do, considering they had done all of their important shopping yesterday and it wasn’t like the pirate town had a whole lot of other options. There was gambling, he guessed, but none of them really seemed like the gambling type. Or, Brand did, but Brand seemed like the type that’d lose the shirt off his back and still not have the sense to stop playing. 

Thankfully, they didn’t have to find an activity. Tempest swept back into their lives, grinning in that manic way that Mal could only assume meant trouble. She said she wanted to show them something, but they’d have to come out to the forest to see it. Mal was instantly wary, hand on the dagger he barely knew how to use. They wouldn’t trick him so easily, wouldn’t lead him blindly to his death.

God, he hoped they were leading him to his death. He didn’t think he could hold up to more torture. He’d buckle under the weight and lose himself completely, and that didn’t seem fair. Not when he was just starting to figure out who he was again. Sierya had bought him a pad of paper and some charcoal for drawing, and he wanted to take a shot at having hobbies. He didn’t know if art would be His Thing, but he wanted the chance to at least try it.

He didn’t want to die, that was what he was trying to think. He didn’t want to be led off into the woods to be murdered and eaten alive, didn’t want to be kidnapped and tortured. He didn’t want to hurt anymore. He wanted to find a place that was safe and comforting and felt like home, and he wanted to stay there. Glimmer Bay certainly wasn’t that place, it didn’t seem like Oceanfalls was that place; it felt like they were only getting farther and farther away from any place that could be called home.

Mal wondered how much of this adventure could be described as following after Brand as he made bad decisions. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence, that none of the people who he was originally traveling with stuck around. That Crier, who they had recruited in some kind of basement prison from what Mal had put together, was the closest thing Brand had to one of his original traveling companions. Well, Crier and Fish. Mal didn’t think that Fish really counted, but he also had a feeling that at least Brand would disagree with that statement. 

So they followed the water genasi deep into the woods, to a forgotten shrine. It was overgrown and crumbling; a place that had obviously not been seen by people in a very long time. That didn’t stop it from being beautiful, obviously enchanted stone shining clearly under the thick vines.

Brand charged in blindly because of course, he did. Sierya had been distracted by the werefoxes, all of which had taken to her like a new sibling, but it wasn’t long before most of the party was in that ancient, forgotten temple. Mal stayed by Sierya’s side, not trusting the temple not to be yet another trap. He had to keep an eye out for more assassins, as well. And any sign of blood sacrifice. There was a whole list of dangers he had to watch for, had to keep the people person he cared about safe from. 

They, against all odds, didn’t find danger. They found a bright pink raven, standing alone on a long-forgotten altar. The bird was delighted to see them, singing its joy from the first moment it saw them. The party was equally entranced, a fact that Mal hated. Were they so blind to the potential dangers? Or did they just not care about risking their lives? Surely, at least one of them had to care about staying alive, right? He hadn’t managed to pick the most suicidal party in the world, had he?

The raven led the party out of the crumbling temple, and Mal was at least grateful for that. It seemed more dangerous to stay in the depths of the place, considering how much of it had already been reclaimed by the earth. Once they were all out, standing in the light of the clearing, the raven shapeshifted from a simple bird to a kenku that was only slightly shorter than Crier.

Mal didn’t want to admit that he was surprised by the shapeshifting, but it did startle him. And that was despite the werefoxes, that shifted from form to form fluidly. He was used to them by now, understood what they were and that they were in control of what they were doing. Seeing a bird become a person was different than seeing a fox do it, not that he could explain why it was different.

Maybe it was the way that the pink kenku seemed to glow faintly. Maybe it was how easy she was to read. Unlike Crier, who literally wore a mask at all times, this kenku was obviously happy to be there. Everything about her demeanor was relaxed and open, and she hadn’t actually stopped with her birdsong. She didn’t stop singing until someone spoke to her, and at that point, she was more than happy to introduce herself.

“I’m Joy, of course! God of Light, Happiness, and Truth, at your service!” Her voice was light and casual as if it wasn’t a big deal to reveal that they were in the presence of a god. And not just any god, either, but an important one. The god of light, the god of the truth, the god of the happiness he had never truly known.

He wanted to hate her. He wanted to run away from her, to not get involved in the affairs of the gods who had all but abandoned the world. But the rest of the party was so delighted by her, and she seemed so harmless. Tempest was delighted that her surprise had gone over well. So he stayed, hovering on the edge of the clearing. This...wasn’t a god that was meant for him. This wasn’t a moment meant for him. He was an outsider and knew better than to hope that they’d think to involve him. 

Despite this, she sought him out. She had gifts for all of them, claiming that they were chosen by the gods. Mal didn’t like the sound of that; the last time he had been chosen for something had gone poorly, to say the least. But it wasn’t like he could say so, it wasn’t like he could turn down the destiny that had been chosen for him. And...at least she was interested in compensating them for their efforts. That was a refreshing change, at the very least. 

She granted them all feathers from her own body, all enchanted with various effects. The boons only worked for as long as they held the feathers on their person, and each of them got something different. All of them were good things, of course. His...granted him more vitality. The ability to take more hits without collapsing to the ground.  
He didn’t like the implication behind that particular gift. His life was his own, and he didn’t want to see it spill from him any more than he had to. He was done bleeding for people, done with sacrificing himself for the greater good. The only things worth protecting were the people he cared about, and he could count them on one hand. 

Himself and Sierya. That was his list, no matter what the rest of the party thought. Iandan wasn’t his dad, Iza wasn’t his mom, Brand wasn’t an annoying older brother, Crier...he didn’t even have an analogy for what Crier would be in his life. A creepy uncle, maybe? That didn’t seem fair to the bird, no matter how much the cleric scared him. They weren’t a family, they were just a bunch of people who were traveling together.

He froze when Sierya approached him, grinning like she had been granted the world. Of course, she was happy. This...this god was worthy of her, and he’d like it if Sierya decided to be a follower of her instead of the tall and ominous Voidwalker. That was a foolish hope, of course. Voidwalker had...saved him, had given her an irreplaceable gift in the form of a magical tarot deck, and had shown up when she needed him. Voidwalker was her god, and if he knew Sierya like he thought he did, she’d call them her friend. 

But Joy was good, and all of them were in a better mood from just being around the bright pink bird. Sierya was standing close to him, and that was the excuse for his own smile. She wove the enchanted feather into his hair and claimed it suited him. He knew it was a lie, of course. He was all greys and reds, something so vibrant could only look bad on his washed-out skin. But he smiled, ignored the way his face heated up from being so close to her, and thanked her.

He...didn’t know how things went from receiving gifts from a god to playing hide and seek. It wasn’t the worst turn of events if he was being honest. The game was fun, and the fox people were more than happy to play with them. It had been Sierya’s idea, and he was still incapable of denying her anything. No matter how childish it felt, he went along with it.

Crier found all of them with ease. Except for Iandan, who was stealthier than any of them had given him credit for and managed to stay hidden until someone declared the round over. Sierya wanted to play again, and it wasn’t long until they were all darting off to hide from Iandan, who had a similar time. The only person who escaped his gaze was Crier, much to everyone’s amusement.

It was getting late. Mal didn’t want to stay in the woods after dark, it didn’t seem safe. And...they still had to go and kill that priest. They had agreed to it at this point, and he just wanted to get it over with. Once the guy was dead, he was pretty sure they were going to leave town. He wanted to keep moving; standing still felt like a trap, especially only a couple of days away from Glimmer Bay.

He didn’t know what he was so afraid of. It wasn’t like any of his family knew he was alive, and everyone in the tower that had hurt him had died terribly. His brain knew that nobody was coming for him, nobody was going to lock him away and take away everything that made him a person. Not again, never again. His heart wasn’t so easy to convince, pounding like a jackhammer at the mere thought of being trapped again. 

He...didn’t understand what triggered the moment between Brand and Tempest. They had been alone, everyone else content to play with the foxes. She said something, smiled at him in a way that made it obvious she adored him, and he stuttered something back. Iandan started playing music, and it wasn’t long before everyone else got involved, using magic to truly set the mood just right.

Tempest wasn’t surprised, or if she was, she knew how to hide it. She also didn’t waste a second, swooping in to press her lips against Brand’s. The kiss lasted for way too long, in Mal’s opinion. It was one thing to share a kiss with someone you liked, in his opinion, but it was another to make people watch you make out with a guy for like six minutes.

If he was ever lucky enough to kiss Sierya, he didn’t even want the rest of the party to see. He’d like to have his privacy. The thought of people watching him, judging him, made him shudder. Romance should be a private thing, in his opinion, not something you did in front of people. At least...they were only kissing. Nothing more scandalous than some wandering hands happened.

And just like that, the moment was over. They were ready to leave, ready to go back to town and kill a man for daring to dislike Tempest. Mal...wasn’t sure they were doing the right thing, but he agreed to go anyways. Sierya didn’t want to, and the idea of leaving her alone made his heart ache. But...she was just staying at the inn, she’d be fine. Mal was the one walking toward danger, confident enough that he’d live through it.

He...didn’t know why Brand was insisting that he had to take Fish on a stealth mission. The robot panther was a lot of things, but stealthy wasn’t one of them. He was loud and obvious and far too friendly with strangers, all of which added up to a terrible partner for a stealth mission. But...where Brand went, Fish went, and Mal could almost understand that part. It made their lives a little harder, but he was still pretty confident that nobody saw them break into the church.

It was in worse shape than he was expecting. He could smell the way the place was molding, the heavy scent of rot under layers of cheap paint. And even that was peeling and splotchy as if it was just slapped on as fast as possible. The floors groaned with even his near non-existent weight on them, and he worried about just how much this place had been left to decay.

They made their way downstairs, Crier leading the way. It made sense that the Cleric was leading them into the depths of the church, even if this wasn’t Crier’s god. Mal...didn’t know much about Crier’s god. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to. The idea of being close to a death god scared him; he was convinced that he’d stumble over his words, that he’d say the wrong thing, and that would be it for him. And he didn’t want to die.

The basement of the church was the site of some kind of half-completed ritual. There was a summoning circle half drawn on the floor, and texts strewn all about the room. They moved in to silently investigate, and it was at this point that they learned just how bad Fish was at investigating. The robot was loud in its quest for knowledge, and it wasn’t long until the half-elf they had been sent to murder came to investigate the noise. 

Mal reacted first, shooting a beam of sunlight from his hands before he even really thought about what he was doing. Not only did the beam hurt the priest, but it sent him stumbling backward, blinded by the intense light. The priest seemed to be unable to orient himself without his sight and spent some time stumbling around. This gave both Brand and Crier more than enough opportunity to finish the job.

It didn’t feel good, ending someone’s life like that. All signs pointed to this man doing something awful, to him having plans to enslave and possibly kill this god, but the fight had felt more like a slaughter than something fair. He...didn’t know if the others felt the same guilt, or if they were unbothered by the idea that they were playing judge, jury, and executioner to someone they hadn’t even bothered to speak to.

He snuck back to the Successful Well without complaint. Sierya wasn’t there, and that fact made his heart pick up speed in his chest, but he didn’t want to be smothering. No matter how much his instincts told him to run, to hurry out and find her in case she was in danger, he stayed in the inn. He laid on his bed all night, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for a sleep that would never come.

When it seemed light enough outside that it was acceptable for him to be awake, he dragged his exhausted body downstairs and got himself a cup of coffee, just like Brand had gotten. He didn’t care for the taste, found it far too bitter, especially compared to the gentler taste of the tea he had tried, but drank it anyway. He hated that he didn’t know where Sierya was, that nobody seemed to know where she or Iandan had gotten to.

He also hated that the party seemed a lot more worried about Iandan than her. Iandan could take care of himself! He...knew Sierya would be upset at the assertion that she couldn’t take care of herself, but it wasn’t the same. Iandan hadn’t spent his whole life in a tower, hadn’t spent his whole life in a cage, and understood how the world worked in a way that neither Mal nor Sierya could hope to. He knew what to look for in the dark, and Mal knew that there was no chance that Sierya knew those rules nearly as well.

They found Iandan at the gate, guarding against the things that lurked in the woods. And it was as if on cue, Sierya was led back by the fox pack. Mal wanted to run to her side, ask why she had disappeared, but the foxes seemed...defensive of her. He didn’t understand. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to understand. They all went back to the inn, and Mal was all but tripping over himself to follow her up to their room.

If she wanted to sleep, he was pretty sure he’d also be able to. It was comforting, sleeping with another person in the same room. The soft sound of someone else’s breath was relaxing. He wondered if he would ever be at the point where he could just sleep alone, without her at his side. Because it wasn’t like he trusted anyone else enough to relax around them. It was just her, and that felt like too much of a burden to bear. 

He...didn’t want to be a burden. He didn’t want to cause her any problems. He wanted to solve problems, wanted to be the reason she smiled. He wanted....to be someone to her. He didn’t know how to be someone to himself, but he was pretty sure he could figure out how to be someone to her. A real person, a person she could be proud to have at her side.

She didn’t want to sleep. She sat down on the bed and started crying, and the hot well of panic bubbled up inside him. He wasn’t good at this, had no experience in comforting people. His hands shook as he reached out to hug her; he didn’t quite have the guts to initiate the hug, but he could offer one. She all but collapsed onto him, sobbing about being a monster, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

The thing that hurt worse was her accusation. She woke up and he wasn’t there. She had the worst night of her life, and she woke up alone. He promised to do better, to follow her to the ends of the earth. To be there, no matter what happened. He didn’t argue that it wasn’t fair that she put that on him, that he had gone and done the job they were assigned and wasn’t even sure if that was the correct thing to do. That he had come back and she had been gone, and that he hadn’t had a single clue as to where she had gone or what had happened.

He sat on the floor with her, leaned against her side. She liked physical contact, liked hugs, and all of the things that felt so foreign to him. It didn’t matter that being so close to her felt like an impossible privilege, something he didn’t actually have the rights to. That every patch of skin that touched her felt alive, thrumming with electricity, and it was all he could focus on. She needed him to be her rock, her point of comfort, and he had to be able to do that. She deserved that much. 

He...didn’t know how the kenku heard them, what Crier had overheard, but it wasn’t that long before the cleric interrupted them. He took off his mask, and he was...a lot less frightening without it. Mal still remembered the Crier from the forest before, the one that had decided to grant death to an assassin was more important than saving Tempest’s life, and that same fear bubbled under his skin. Maybe Mal misunderstood the gesture, maybe this was the kenku’s idea of mercy.

He would go down fighting if it came to that. He didn’t think he could actually take the cleric in any kind of fight, but if the kenku made any move to hurt Sierya, he’d pay for it. He had to bite his cheek to keep from snarling; had to focus on making sure Sierya was alright. He was hardly listening to what Crier was saying. The words took actual minutes to sink in; he was offering to remove the curse. It wouldn’t fix what had happened, wouldn’t bring that goblin back to life, but it would ensure that it didn’t happen again.

Mal was just glad that the cleric was asking instead of just doing. Most people in their lives hadn’t bothered to ask for permission, and it was a nice change. Mal hated that the offer softened his opinion of Crier even more; he couldn’t afford to trust him. He couldn’t afford to be wrong about trusting them, couldn’t afford to get hurt again.

He didn’t think that he’d be able to put himself back together again if he shattered. If everything fell apart again, he didn’t think he’d survive it. They were stumbling onto something greater than themselves, something that involved the gods and all kinds of terrible mysteries, and he...didn’t care. He just wanted to find somewhere to belong, somewhere that he could let his walls down. People he could trust not to hurt him, not to take away what little he had. He longed for the concept of home, of something he had never really known.

The party didn’t ask much of them. They went to the god summoning, even though it felt a little bit like a mistake. Maleus didn’t like to be in the presence of gods, he found. He trusted them less than he trusted people; he knew what to expect from people. He was pretty sure he knew the worst a person could do. He didn’t know the depth of a god’s depravity, the worst ways a god could hurt him. He didn’t want to find out, and the easiest way to do that was to just stay away.

It was times like those that made him glad he was able to fade into the background. That he was overlooked, a background piece in everyone else’s story. He didn’t want to have a story of his own, didn’t want to be a person that mattered in his own right. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, that wasn’t it. He just didn’t want to exist, didn’t want people to perceive him, didn’t want people to hurt him.

He was a coward, in that regard. He was so afraid that everyone in the world was out to get him, that things would only ever break badly. It was why he followed after the party when they got worried about Joy. He had liked that god well enough, sure, but mostly he needed to keep an eye on the people around him. So when Sierya didn’t go chasing down the vibrant pink god, he stuck by her side. Iza stayed with them as well, building them a campfire and allowing them to enjoy the evening.

The explosion in the woods grabbed everyone’s attention. Sierya was all but dragging him toward the sound, and he would’ve dragged his feet for anyone else. For her, he ran and did his best to keep up. This was important, of course, in the same way, everything was important now. This was another piece of the big puzzle that he wanted no part of.

Joy was gone. She wasn’t dead, but she was gone, and that fact seemed to weigh on Crier and Iandan more than anyone else. Mal...wasn’t happy about it, of course. Joy had been a kind god. But she was still divine, and the divine only seemed to cause problems. He was not devastated by the loss of her. 

Sierya summoned Voidwalker in the hopes of getting answers. It was a bold choice, one that Mal was surprised to see work. He didn’t know why the spindly, tall god responded so well to Sierya’s call. He didn’t trust it, didn’t want to know what he would inevitably ask of her. He could only see the relationship ending in pain.

They got some of the answers they wanted. Joy was alive, Voidwalker was taking care of her. She was safe for as long as they could hide her. Voidwalker told them to head to Farwick for real answers, to see for themselves what the world looked like beyond the Restless Sea. Mal thought that it was a terrible idea, and the last thing he wanted to do was meet Brand’s god. Or...great grandpa or whatever. He didn’t care.

He also didn’t know how to swim, and the idea of going out there, on the wide-open ocean, filled him with uneasy dread. What if he fell in? What if Sierya did? What if he couldn’t save her? He did his best to keep his breathing even as they walked back to town, confident that they’d find someone foolish enough to sail to Farwick in no time fast. 

He and Sierya went back to the inn. Neither of them wanted to really be involved in the boat finding process; neither of them knew anything about boats or sailing, and he suspected that she’d also be fine with whatever the party wanted to do. She was still...upset. Not that he could blame her for being upset. He was...also upset, but his pain didn’t matter. Not if there was something he could do for her, some way to help her. She mattered.

So when she wanted to make missing posters in the hopes of finding out any kind of information about the goblin she had eaten, he didn’t argue. He didn’t say that it seemed like an exercise in agony, something that she didn’t need to do. He helped wherever he could, and stayed quietly supportive of what she wanted to do.

She got a call from a child, desperately seeking information on his mother, and Mal had to fight the urge to pluck the rock from her hand and chuck it into the sea. This wasn’t going to end well, and the last thing he wanted was for her to cry again. She wanted to meet him alone, and Mal wanted to beg her not to leave him. 

He didn’t. She left to meet the child, and guilt formed like a stone in his stomach. He should’ve run after her, should’ve reminded her that she never had to be alone. That he was here, and that he’d always be there. In sickness and in flames, he’d be there. No matter how much hurt any of them caused, either directly or indirectly, he’d stay by her side. 

She came back to him, at least. She was obviously upset when she returned, but she was confident that she had done the right thing. That she had truly helped someone. Even more so when Mal helped her walk the goblins up to the church, where Tempest was working on cleaning with the biggest smile on her face. 

Mal wondered what it was like, to be that easily happy. To decide that she wanted something, wanted someone, and to pursue it with that kind of confidence. Would... Sierya like that more? Did Sierya want him to be more confident, to make the first move? What if he couldn’t? What if he was reading too much into how she felt about him, and that she saw him as a brother? What if he made it weird, and lost the only person he could safely let himself care about?

They walked down to the docks together, and he spent the whole time thinking about holding her hand. About taking it in his with an easy smile and not making it a thing. Just lacing their fingers together as they walked, and how nice that would be. He didn’t do it. He didn’t have the guts. He stayed by her side, just as she wanted, and only thought of holding her hand and professing his undying love.

There were a few boats in the harbor, most of which were impressive. Especially the one with the handsome wolfman as the captain. Mal hoped for a moment that they were joining his crew, stowing away on his ship. He seemed competent and prepared to face the world, and Mal wanted that more than anything.

They weren’t sailing on the wolfman’s ship. No, they were sailing on the weird goblin’s ship. His name was Jag, and he knew Brand and Crier somehow. He seemed...quite stupid to Mal, but he was who the party chose and it wasn’t like he had room to complain. He had already agreed that he’d go wherever they wanted, with whoever they wanted.

It didn’t matter that this felt like a trap, that this felt like taking a step toward his death. He got on the small boat, already realizing how cramped the quarters would be. He...wasn’t a fan of that idea either. He had liked the privacy the Well had granted him, enjoyed being able to put a wall between him and the rest of the party. He wasn’t thrilled to be sharing a room with all of them now, especially not on such a small vessel. If there was a fight, there’d be nowhere he could run to calm down. He would be trapped at sea, no matter what happened.

He tried not to think about it as they returned to the Well for their last night on land. They’d set sail at dawn, and Mal didn’t know when they’d return to land. If they’d ever return to land. He had a bad feeling, but sure it was just all the previous talk of corruption and the dangers that lurked in the water. He told himself it was nothing and fell into an uneasy, exhausted slumber. 

They set sail the next day, and everything seemed fine. The sun was shining, the gulls were cawing, and the water seemed surprisingly calm for something referred to as Restless. He tried not to think about that part and simply tried to get used to the feeling of the rocking of the boat. He had already decided that he liked the sensation of walking on dry land a lot better; a pirate’s life was not for him. Still, he was happy to stay at Sierya’s side as she chatted with the various crewmates. All of them were so...little, so determined to do a good job, and so very, very stupid. It was kind of nice, to be so confident that he was smarter than all of them put together. It certainly felt safer; none of them struck him as smart enough to plan anything. If they hated him, if they decided they wanted him dead, they’d be upfront about it, if just because they were too stupid to be subtle. 

Sierya began asking the pirates to teach her to swim. Mal...wasn’t sure how that was going to go. She asked the captain first, and his face split into a wide, mischievous grin. He agreed happily, not even asking for any kind of payment, and Mal’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Surely, Sierya would see through that? Surely she knew she was walking into a trap? She was going to turn it back onto him somehow?

Nope. He threw her into the water and Mal’s heart leapt into his throat as he started looking for anything that could save her. He could cast water breathing, but only if he had line of sight. He couldn’t see her, she hadn’t resurfaced from beneath the waves. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to swim, and that meant diving in after her was a waste. No matter how often his brain screamed at him that it was the correct solution, that dying with her was better than living without her, he couldn’t bring himself to leap over the edge.

Someone else found a rope. Someone else hauled her out of the water, someone else saved her life and it weighed on him like a stone. He panicked. He did nothing. He stood by and watched her almost drown. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness for that, didn’t deserve her friendship, didn’t deserve to be in the same room as her. He went below deck, to their shared quarters, and claimed a hammock as his own. He couldn’t be around them anymore, couldn’t bring himself to look at them.

He was supposed to protect her! If he couldn’t do that, what was the point of him? Why was he alive, if not to make her life better? If not to trade his life for hers, if it came to that? He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes to stop the tears from leaking out and swallowed the sob that threatened to escape him. He wasn’t going to cry. Not where anyone could walk in and see him. He was stronger than that. 

Another splash drew his attention away from the pathetic pity party he was throwing himself, and he launched himself up, back above deck. She was in the water again, another goblin at her side. The goblin actually seemed to be...instructing her, which seemed like progress. It seemed better, at any rate, even if Sierya was still struggling a bit. The goblin wasn’t letting her drown, and it was clear that as soon as Sierya was ready, they would climb back on board.

Mal wasn’t convinced that he took a breath until she was back on the rickety wood of the boat. He wanted to fling himself at her, sob into her shoulder until he was convinced that everything was alright. But he couldn’t do that. He had to be the strong one, had to pretend that he wasn’t bothered by anything. So he smiled and nodded at her as she spoke with such pride at being able to keep herself above water. She could almost kind of swim, wasn't that amazing?

He bit his cheek as he forced himself to smile for her, sure that the tears would leak out if he didn’t focus on the bright, sharp pain. She didn’t seem to notice, and everything was fine for the rest of the day. Crier made everyone food, and she made the mistake of eating the crew’s chef’s food anyway. Anyone with eyes could’ve seen that it was bad, and the rest of the crew had gone to Angler with expectant eyes instead of the halfling that they put in charge of making food. It seemed like an odd arrangement to Mal, but he didn’t know shit about sailing. 

The chef’s food made her sick, which wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone, but Crier’s magic food made it better. It made them immune to being poisoned, or so the cleric claimed. Mal ate it because it seemed like the best choice, and he was even begrudgingly willing to admit that it tasted pretty good. Which made sense, if the food was just magic. It wasn’t like the cleric could fuck that up. 

They all laid down for the night, Iandan up on the main deck, and the rest of them below it in hammocks. Crier was reading, studying some spell scroll, while Brand was quietly reading about fruit facts to his robot. Sierya was actually asleep, but Mal found that he couldn’t relax. Even after Crier finally made some breakthrough and called it a night, even after Brand put the book down and went to bed, he was awake. The quiet splash of the waves against the hull did nothing but keep him awake, brain firing away at a million miles a minute. 

He got up, moving as close to silently as he could. He had to do something, had to use the restless energy. And he knew the perfect target for all of his rage; the stupid captain who had almost drowned the person he cared most for in the world. He wasn’t going up there with a real plan; he just knew that he wanted Jag to suffer but not die. It seemed like a fair deal to him; he hadn’t killed Sierya, after all. Just made her suffer a bit.

The firbolg caught him but didn’t stop him. He wanted to know what Mal was planning, and Mal doubted that just saying that the captain had to pay would be enough of an explanation. So he tried to explain it. He didn’t know if he did a good job, as most of his explanation was simply that the goblin had to pay for what he had done. He did throw in that he wasn’t going to murder the captain, and even lied and called the firbolg his friend. Just for good measure.

He was pretty sure it was the word friend that got the other man to back off and let him continue on his quest. Mal...almost felt bad about playing on the firbolg’s emotions like that, but the guilt wasn’t enough to stop him from sneaking into the captain’s quarters. He was surprised to find the first mate in there as well; the two sharing the same bed, but both fully clothed and not really touching at all. Jag was spread out, taking up as much room as he possibly could, but he was small and there was plenty of room for a halfling as well.  
Mal’s curse wasn’t a little bit of suffering, all things considered. Eight hours of being able to do next to nothing was probably considered cruel, but it wasn’t going to kill the captain. And he’d spend at least half of that time asleep, so it wasn’t really that bad. Or so he told himself as he snuck out of the room and back into the sleeping quarters without issue.

He laid down, sure that he’d finally get some sleep. It felt like he had just shut his eyes when Sierya was shaking him awake, asking if he wanted to go play fetch with the dogs and Fish. He blinked blearily up at her for a moment, barely comprehending what she was asking, before forcing a smile onto his lips and nodding. Of course, he wanted to go play. Any time spent with her was precious, and he was honored to be included. Not that he said any of that. He simply responded with an of course and followed her above deck.

He wanted to question how she had gotten a hold of Crier’s little dog, but figured it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like Crier did much with the dog, and it would probably be good for it to get some exercise. They didn’t really have a ball, but Mal knew a spell that turned any other spell into a sphere so that it could be activated later, and that was close enough. He was at least pretty sure that the dogs wouldn’t be able to bite through it, and was only capturing light inside the ball anyways. It wouldn’t hurt them.

He handed her the ball; this was more for her than him anyways. All he really wanted was to see her smile. The whole scene felt a little surreal in the early dawn light, and he was once again struck by how beautiful she was. He wanted to say it, to stop the game and kiss her, but couldn’t find the courage. He was too nervous about other people watching, of them judging, to do anything that resembled a brave move.  
She threw the ball and it went sailing over the rails and into the water. He was very glad that the spell wasn’t a complex one, and wouldn’t hurt anyone or anything when it ran out. He was also sure that the dogs weren’t going to be stupid enough to charge in after it; a fact that was true, if only for Fish. Crier’s dog and Sierya’s both charged headfirst into the water, and neither he nor Sierya saw them come up again.

She panicked, sure that she had killed Crier’s dog, and dove in after it. He wasn’t about to let her die to save a dog Crier didn’t seem to care about and tried to stop her. He managed to grab onto her wrist, in the hopes of pulling her back onto the ship, but her momentum was greater than his. She pulled him down into the drink with him, and the instinctive gasp he made when hitting the cold water filled his lungs with saltwater.

He was drowning, his whole brain a panicked mess. He didn’t know what to do, he couldn’t swim, he could barely see and where was Sierya? Was she alright, did she make it, were they both going to die over a stupid dog? He flailed his way toward the surface, managing to get a lungful of air instead of seawater, and saw Sierya and the dog struggling in the water. Brand was up on the deck, apparently awakened by the noise. He waved his arms frantically at the artificer, hoping that he cared enough to save them.  
And then he saw Sierya on the deck, stepping through a dimension door with Crier’s dog. She had...saved the dog over him. She had left him to drown so she could save a dog. His heart shattered, and he almost didn’t accept Brand’s hands when the artificer cast Fly to get down and save him.

...She had chosen a dog over him. He followed Brand into the kitchen area, using a cantrip to reflexively dry both his own clothes and hers. He regretted it immediately; how would she know that she had hurt him if he still did all the same little favors? Was he hurt? Did he care? He felt like sobbing. He took a cup of coffee when Brand offered it and sat as far away from everyone as he could.

Didn’t he matter? He thought that she had cared. He had thought that it was the two of them against the world. She had been the one person that he was so sure wouldn’t hurt him. The one person that was safe. 

He was wrong. He had always been wrong. It was only him, and it would only be him. It was a harsh lesson to learn, but it was better that he learned it now. It would’ve only been worse if he had told her how he felt. His heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces, but it didn’t matter. The only person who was there for him was him, and he should’ve known better than to think that she was different. People couldn’t be trusted, no matter how much you loved them.


End file.
